Rivalry restored in the Dome
After last season’s 31-8 drubbing in Brookings, University of South Dakota head football coach Joe Glenn said his team has turned the page and is more than ready to host the biggest rival they have,
the South Dakota State Jackrabbits.
Last Saturday, SDSU beat Indiana State 29-0 and held them to 161 yards of offense. The momentum is on their side. However, SDSU’s defense is giving up 94 more yards per game then they did at this point last season. Glenn said a lot of that has to do with inexperience.
Glenn also said the Jacks’ defense has seven new starters from when they played last year.
First-year running back Trevor Bouma said they have seen a few things on film giving him confidence in what they will be able to do come Saturday.
“We feel like we’ll be able to run the ball against them and do some good things offensively,” Bouma said. “They aren’t a big blitzing team, so we’ll look to take advantage of them.”
Despite being worse statistically than they were a year ago, offensive coordinator Wesley Beschorner said his offense still thinks very highly of the Jackrabbit defense.
“They have less experience than a year ago, but they’re still a good defense. They’re big, tall, fast and athletic like most teams in our conference,” Beschorner said. “Stats don’t tell the whole story every time.”
The Jackrabbits boast the Missouri Valley Conference leader in tackles, senior middle linebacker R.C. Kilgore, who has 105 tackles on the season.
Bouma said the SDSU defense plays very smart.
“They play a base defense so their linebackers normally sit back and read the plays,” Bouma said. “(Kilgore) plays smart and picks up plays pretty fast.”
Last week both Bouma and backup first-year running back Jordan Roberts left the game numerous times because of injuries. Bouma has dealt with a shoulder issue ever since the team played Northern Iowa Oct. 19 and Roberts has been dealing with a lower leg injury.
“I hope I’ll be able to play, but I’m not totally sure. It depends how I’m feeling,” Bouma said.
The question mark at running back will force the team to rely heavily on sophomore quarterback Kevin Earl, who has helped turn around a unit that struggled early in the year.
“(Earl) has gotten better with repetitions and he’s playing well right now,” Beschorner said. “We’re not going to ask him to do anything he normally doesn’t do though. What we’ll be game planning for is to put him and the rest of the offense in the best place to succeed.
One of the questions leading into Saturday’s game for the Coyotes is how they’ll stay motivated after losing three straight games, including the last two within the final moments of the game.
“We’re all looking forward to this game and want to send the seniors out right and get a big rivalry win,” Bouma said.
The game plan for the Coyotes defense is no different than it was last year. And that is to stop SDSU’s junior running back Zach Zenner. Zenner leads the conference in rushing yards with 1,372 and has accounted for 18 total touchdowns this season.
“We just need to play football,” sophomore defensive end Drew Iddings said. “We’ll have to fill our gaps, go all out and make sure we stop the run.”
Slowing Zenner down may be at the top of the list for the Coyote defense, but avoiding giving up the big play might be just as important. Last week, Montana’s quarterback Jordan Johnson threw for 337 yards. He was able to extend some plays, which resulted in broken coverage and too many big plays.
“We’ll have to fix some things up, look at our plays and fix those mental mistakes,” Iddings said.
Iddings, who is from Rapid City, said the rivalry is something he’d been looking forward to all season.
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“It’s a huge game. I can’t tell you how excited I am,” Iddings said.
